523 
J59 







wrsm 



: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, f 



I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 




" 



The New York Election and the State of the 
Country. 



MR. JAY'S ADDRESS 



CITIZENS OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY, 



Approaching State Election. 



Delivered at Morrifama, N. Y., Oct. 30, 1862. 



New York : 

JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, 5 o GREENE STREET. 

1862. 



Mr. Jay's Address, 



Fellow Citizens of Westchester County : 

The approaching election to choose the Governor of the 
State and members of the Legislature for Congress is, perhaps, 
in its bearings upon the nation at large, the most important 
that was ever held in this or any other of the United States. 

We are in the midst of a fearful civil war, the aim of 
which extends far beyond the humbling of our nag, the wast- 
ing of our resources, the destruction of our armies, and the 
seizure of our capital. Those are injuries which might be 
repaired. In the war of 1812 with Great Britain, that was 
the object of the English cabinet, and, in part, they tempo- 
rarily succeeded, even to the seizure of Washington and the 
burning of its public edifices. But from that contest the 
American people emerged with honor, their gallantry vindi- 
cated, their pride encouraged, their power and vigor and 
prestige enlarged, and so probably would it be in every just 
war in which this Republic might engage, if the people were 
true to themselves and to the nationality that our fathers have 
bequeathed to us ; for, in our boundless territory, our illimit- 
able resources, and our inexhaustible vigor, consist the ele- 
ments of recuperation to an extent never found before in any 
nation of ancient or modern times. 

But the war in which we are now engaged presents far 
graver cpiestions than either of the wars we have waged since 
the Revolution — for this is aimed at our National life. It is 



waged not to humble our Republic, but to ruin it ; not merely 
to seize our capital, but to destroy our Constitution; not 
simply to occupy and waste our territory, but to appropriate 
a large part of it forever ; to rob us of half our country, in- 
cluding that which is peculiarly our own, for which we have 
paid in money and in life ; of Florida, which we bought from 
Spain ; of the Orleans territory, that we purchased from France ; 
and of Texas and jSTcw Mexico, that were won at such cost of 
blood, if not of crime. 

Our foes are not, as in our former wars, Englishmen or 
Mexicans, but they are, like ourselves, Americans ; descended 
from the same races in the olden time and from the same Rev- 
olutionary stock in the last century; and it is but simple 
justice to admit that they have exhibited a bravery and 
daring worthy of a better cause. 

At this moment, the varying fortunes of the war incline 
against them. Bankrupt, beggared, and disheartened, they 
are retreating from the banks of the Potomac, with their 
ranks shattered and broken by their bloody defeat at South 
Mountain and Antietam, and their spirit depressed by their 
utter inability to invade the North, and their fearful disap- 
pointment at the refusal of "My Maryland" to recognize 
them as her deliverers. 

When they deliberately inaugurated war against the Ameri- 
can people, by the siege of Sumter, they boasted that their 
Confederate counterfeit of our Hag would soon float from 
the dome of the capitol at Washington, and presently from 
Paneuil Hall itself; that their armies would revel in Phila- 
delphia and Xew York, and. repose upon the banks of the 
Hudson. Posse.->ed, by the treachery of the late Administra- 
tion, <>f a long line of magnificent fortresses, of arsenals and 
navy yards, they thought it would be an easy matter to defy 
the Government they had plundered. But they knew not the 
spirit <>f the Northern people, nor that love of country which 
lie.- deep iii the heart of every true American, and to which 
he 18 ready, at the call of his country, to sacrifice fortune, 
children, and life. 

To estimate aright the progress already made by the na- 



tional arms, and our situation at the present moment, recall 
for an instant the history of the passing year. When it com- 
menced, the rebels held the Mississippi, from Columbia to 

New Orleans ; their batteries lined the Potomac ; Washing- 
ton "was blockaded ; Maryland wavered in her allegiance ; the 
enemy had the: strongholds of Kentucky, and claimed the 
mastery in Missouri. 

Presently, Fort Henry was captured by our forces under 
Commodore Foote ; the battle of Koanoke was won by Gen. 
Burnside, and the rebel fleet in Albemarle Sound was de- 
feated and destroyed. 

Next, Fort Dbnelson yielded to our forces under Gen. 
Grant, with some 12,000 prisoners ; Nashville was occupied 
by Gen. Buell ; and Fort Clinch, Fernandina, and St. Mary"-, 
were taken by Commodore Dupont. 

Then came the brilliant victory of Pea Ridge, in Arkan- 
sas, when the rebel Generals McCullough and Mcintosh were 
killed ; and presently we recovered possession of Pensacola, 
St. Augustine, New Madrid, and Newbern, North Carolina. 
We cleared the Potomac, occupied Beaufort, fought the great 
battle of Shiloh, took Island No. 10, which had been declared 
impregnable, captured Fort Pulaski, near Savannah, bade de- 
fiance to Forts Jackson and St. Philip, and, under the able 
guidance of Commodore Farragut, assisted by Capt. Boggs, 
of the Varuna, and his gallant associates, repossessed our- 
selves of the city of New Orleans, after the most brilliant 
naval engagement which history has yet recorded. 

Then followed the occupation of Yorktown by Gen. 
McClellan, our bloody victory at Williamsburg, the battle 
at West Point, the occupation of Norfolk, the crippling of the 
Merrimac by the Monitor, in a memorable combat which I 
had the fortune to witness, the battle of Hanover Court 
House, the evacuation, by the rebels, of Corinth, subsequently 
the battle of Fair Oaks, the naval victory of Memphis, and 
very recently our memorable victories at Sharpsburgh, An- 
tietam, Iuka, and Corinth. 

Well might the Evemny Post say, in closing a review of 
the past year, "The Administration has not been a failure; 



6 

it has been a grand and brilliant success. History will so 
account it. "We challenge the annals of the past to furnish 
an example of equal achievements, in the same time, and 
under such stupendous difficulties." 

The last terrific blows dealt to the rebellion, especially that 
at Antietam, are about being followed up by the army of the 
Union, now being reinforced by the new volunteers, of whom 
80,000 have already been sent by New York alone since the 
call of the President for 000,000 men. Our gallant navy, 
whose rapid growth has astonished Europe, and whose new 
iron-clads are being daily launched from numerous ship yards, 
mounted with guns of miraculous power, is about to sweep 
along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, to replace the old flag over 
the rebel fortresses and towns, of which we were robbed by 
treachery. The new tax about to be collected is giving solid- 
ity to our securities, and strength to our Treasury ; and you 
at once comprehend the ground we have recovered, and the 
probability that a determined energetic effort by the Govern- 
ment, backed by a united people, will presently restore the 
integrity of our territory, and the supremacy of our republic. 

Such is the present position of the war, which for eighteen 
months has threatened to destroy our nationality ; and now 
comes the question as to our duty and our interest, as Ameri- 
can citizens, in the pending election. 

I have a profound faith in the intelligence, the common 
sense, and the love of country, which I think characterize the 
mass of the American people, when they arc permitted to judge 
tor themselves, and are not cajoled by party leaders, anxious 
to hoodwink them to advance their own ambition. And I am 
inclined to think that this rebellion into which the country was 
helplessly plunged by the treason of the late Administration, 
and its Northern confederates, has done much to create dis- 
trust of the counsels of partisans, and to induce the people to 
think and act for themselves. 

When the war was begun by the rebels at Sumter, the 
echoes of the first gun fired at our old flag, reverberating 
through our Northern hills, had not reached the spurs of the 
Rocky Mountains, before the citizens of the loyal States stood 



shoulder to shoulder, as one man ; the democratic leaders 

bowed to the National will, and even Fernando "W !, who 

had assumed that disunion was inevitable, and had broached 
a plan for making New York a free city, bowed to the inspira- 
tion of the hour, and at Union Place called upon the people to 
respond with alacrity to the calls of patriotism, and advocated 
"a strong executive power, as requiring ample authority to 
make it efficient, and especially as, under our form of Govern- 
ment, we maintain ourselves, our inestimable rights, and the 
basis of free institutions." 

The almost universal rising of the Northern Democrats to 
sustain a President whose election they had opposed, against 
a rebellion headed by their former friends, constituted un- 
doubtedly a glorious and significant fact in our country's his- 
tory, and went far to prove that the Union was cherished in 
our heart of hearts, and that the American Government, based 
on the affection of the people, was the strongest in the world. 

The American doctrine taught to us in our boyhood, and 
which the Democratic party have always incorporated into 
their creed, has been an undying faith in the perpetuity of our 
Republic — a readiness to make any sacrifice to maintain the 
Republic, and a conviction that whenever the National su- 
premacy was attacked by violence, whenever the nation was 
engaged in war, it was the first duty of every citizen to sup- 
port the Executive, whoever he might be — to maintain the 
rights, and honor, and dignity of the Government, by whom- 
soever assailed — and to swear, in the memorable words of 
Jackson, that " the Union must and shall be preserved.*' 

Thirty years ago, when South Carolina inaugurated nulli- 
fication as she has now inaugurated civil war, Daniel Webster 
lent to General Jackson his most earnest support. He said at 
Boston : 

"I shall support the President in maintaining this Union and this Con- 
stitution, and the cause shall not fail for want of any aid, any effort, an\ 
glorious cooperation of mine. When the standard of the Union is raised, 
and waves over my head, God forbid that I should enquire w 1h> is commis- 
sioned to unfurl it and bear it up ! I oidy ask in what manner I. as an 
humble individual, can best discharge my duty in defending it.'' 



8 

To remind you of the depth of this sentiment in the breast 
of the American people, I need only recall to your recollection 
the Hartford Convention, held during the war of 1812, and 
the intensity of the indignation which was called forth by the 
bare suspicion that its members entertained sentiments, and 
had suggested measures, not in accordance with the heartiest 
devotion to the National Government, and the most energetic 
prosecution of the war. Nearly fifty years have passed away 
since the time when the Hartford Convention met, and Presi- 
dent Madison, on the strength of a false report that they were 
in secret correspondence with the enemy, ordered Major Jes- 
sup, of Kentucky, to Hartford with a regiment, to suppress 
any treasonable outbreak: and the taint of disloyalty which is 
still associated with their name, despite their vindication, may 
enable us to form some idea of the infamy which will attach 
to the memory of every citizen of a loyal State in our day, 
clinging to his descendants through generations yet unborn, 
who shall, in this crisis of our national fate, lend his influence 
to embarrass the National Government, or who, by word or 
deed, shall give aid and comfort to the enemies of his country. 

The ancient leaders of the democratic party, the recognized 
exponents of its principles, and its honored standard-bearers 
in other days, have unhesitatingly sacrificed all party con- 
siderations, and arrayed themselves uncompromisingby on the 
side of the Government. Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, 
with a nobility that might well redeem all former errors, 
promptly and manfully rushed to the support of his successful 
rival for the presidential chair. Gen. Cass, so long the chief 
of his party, now stands by the Na 4 . ional Executive ; and the 
strong men who have followed his lend are the warmest sup- 
porters of a Republican President. Senator Wright and Gen- 
eral Dumont of Indiana, Joseph Holt of Kentucky, Generals 
Logan, McClernand, and Wallace of Illinois, Governor Tod 
of Ohio, Governor Johnson of Tennesee, Governor Sprague of 
Rhode Island, General Butler of Massachusetts, with George 
Bancroft, John A. Dix, Daniel S. Dickenson, Peter Cooper, 
John Cochrane, Francis B. Cutting, and not least, Lyman 
Tremain, with a host of others of New York, vindicate, by 



their patriotic devotion to the Government, the ancient Demo- 
cratic doctrine. 

I assume, my fellow-citizens, that these gentlemen truly 
represent the patriotism of the masses. 

I know that exceptions to the rule are to he found in all 
ranks of society — that there are some who care naught for 
our Republic save as they can make it subservient to their 
wealth ; who neither go to the war themselves, nor send their 
sons, but rather ship their boys to Europe to prevent the pos- 
sibility of their serving their country. I know that there are 
politicians who are ready to gratify their ambition, even 
though it be in a broken Union or an isolated city. No church 
is without its Judas— no country without its Benedict Arnolds. 
But apart from these exceptions, I assume that the people of 
the loyal States love their country, as well they may ; for 
never did God create a nobler land, and never did the founders 
of a nation bequeath to their sons a more glorious constitution, 
or purer principles of right and freedom. 

I assume, then, gentlemen, that we are perfectly agreed in 
regard to the main question of this war — That the President is 
to be fully sustained in prosecuting the war for the maintenance 
of the integrity, the supremacy, and the honor of the American 
people ; and that it ought to be vigorously prosecuted by all 
the means recognized by the laws of war among Christian na- 
tions until these objects are attained ; and that every citizen is 
bound to give to the President all the assistance in his power 
in the prosecution of this great object. 

I assume that there is no man in this assembly — I sincerely 
trust there is none — who wishes to earn for himself and his 
children the infamy of which the Hartford Conventionists 
were suspected — no man who sympathizes with Jeff'. Da\ i> 
and his co-conspirators — no man who wishes for their success 
— no man who permits himself to doubt that the Republic 
which was guarded by the hand of Providence through the 
seven years' war of our Revolution, and made triumphant over 
the army and navy of Great Britain, is now to succumb to the 
treason of a Southern faction, instead of victoriously surviving 
the conflict, as I believe it will, and handing down to future 



10 

centuries the Republican Institutions which, have made us 
great, prosperous, and happy. 

The great question, therefore, I propose to discuss is this, 
whether the election of Mr. Wadsworth or that of Mr. Sey- 
mour will most assist the National Government in promptly 
vindicating the honor of the nation and the supremacy of the 
laws. 

It is true that when secession was first commenced by paper 
edicts, and no blood had yet been shed, a generous humanity, 
anxious to escape the evils of war, induced an occasional expres- 
sion of a readiness to let the rebel States go in peace ; but the 
inauguration of war by South Carolina, and the malignant dis- 
position exhibited toward the loyal States, and the blood shed 
upon a hundred battle-fields, have dissipated the idea that a 
Northern and Southern Republic could exist in harmony on 
the American Continent, and have made it clear as the day, 
that a separation, however secured by guaranties for peace, 
would, after a brief time, inaugurate an eternal warfare, in 
which the South, strengthened by alliances with foreign pow- 
ers, would be enabled to oppose us more successfully ; and 
that the principle of disintegration introduced by our permit- 
ting the secession of some States would open the door for the 
secession of others, and reduce our once proud Republic to the 
condition of a third rate power, with a limited territory, and 
with no power of national cohesion. 

If anything were wanting to convince Americans that their 
only safety lies in preserving, at whatever cost, the absolute 
integrity and supremacy of the Republic, it might be found 
in the anxiety of the powers of Europe, who are jealous of our 
greatness, to sunder us in twain, and their clear belief that, 
the moment the separation of the South is an accomplished 
tact, our greatness will be forever ended, and that what re- 
mains of the Republic will presently crumble into pieces — 
California going by herself, and the West separating from the 
East. Our true friends in Europe, the Emperor of Russia, 
the Brights and Cobdens, and Fosters and Mills of England, 
the Montalemberte and De Gasparins of France, and the 
Garibaldis of Italy, recognize the trutn which our own states- 



11 

men from Washington downward have taught us, that our 
only safety is in maintaining, unbroken, our glorious heritage 
and transmitting to our children, in unimpaired integrity, one 
Country, one Constitution, and one Destiny. 

And now comes the question, Which of the candidates for 
Governor will best assist us to this result? 

They are both gentlemen of high position, men of intelli- 
gence, character, and culture, eminently litted by their personal 
qualifications for the high post for which they have been 
nominated. Some of Mr. Seymour's writings I have read 
with pleasure and profit. My relations with him have always 
been of the most pleasant character, and had I been heretofore 
a member of a social club, where he was the candidate for the 
presidency, I scarely know the man who, in the versatile and 
genial qualities that adorn such a position, could justly claim 
to be his superior. 

But the question here is as to the national views of these 
gentlemen, as determining their official influence and conduct. 
Their principles have been frankly avowed. Mr. Seymour's 
two speeches on the state of the nation, delivered January 
31st, 1861, and September 10th, 1S62, have been recently 
published together and widely circulated by his friends in the 
present campaign, and there is no note to intimate that he has 
at all modified the views expressed by him in 1861. On page 
3 of this document he intimates a doubt as to the right of 
the National Government to execute the laws in defiance of 
the South, and suggests that an attempt to do so would be un- 
constitutional and revolutionary. Here are his own words : 

"Let us also see if successful coercion by the North is less 
revolutionary than successful secession by the South." 

According to this view, the restoration of the supremacy 
of the Union, by the army and navy of the nation, under 
the direction of the President as Commander-in-Chief of the 
Republic, would be a revolutionary act, and we can readily 
understand why Mr. Seymour, educated, as I understand he 
was, at the celebrated military school of Captain Partridge, 
has not offered his services to the President if he believes 



12 

him to be engaged in a revolutionary, and, therefore, an un- 
constitutional and wicked war. 

Gentlemen, we have heard from Mr. Jeff. Davis and his 
fellow traitors that the determination of Mr. Lincoln, in obe- 
dience to his oath, to execute the laws of the United States, 
was revolutionary and despotic ; but is that the language we 
wish to bear from the Chief Magistrate of the Empire State '( 

Again, Mr. Seymour said : ' ; {Tlie question is simply this : 
Shall we have compromise after the war, or compromise with- 
out war ? " 

Is that the question with you? Are you prepared to make 
concession to the rebels of the South ; to offer them bribes to 
return to their allegiance ; to reward them for the misery they 
havc wrought, for the blood they have shed, and for the losses, 
the taxes, the shame they have brought upon our country '. 
I wish Mr. Seymour had stated what premium he was prepar- 
ed to offer for the perpetration of tliese enormities ; what in- 
ducements, what promises, what rewards, what " compromise," 
to use his own term, he would hold out to bring back to their 
places in the Senate our " wayward sisters," and. to their seats 
in the House " our Southern brethren." If Mr. Seymour, as- 
piring to the executive chair of New York, sees no result of 
this wicked rebellion but compromise, we should know what 
amount of concession, what extent of humiliation he proposes 
to inflict upon the nation ; or whether, regarding " successful 
coercion as revolutionary," he would allow Jefferson Davis 
to fix, himself, the terms of submission for the American 
people. 

Mr. Seymour closed the speech to which I have referred 
with a suggestion of the impending downfall of our country. 
He said : 

"III the downfall of our nation, and amidst its crumbling ruins, we will 
cling to the fortune- of New York. * * We will loyally follow its flag 
through the gloom and perils of the future, and in the saddest hour there 
will remain a gleam of hope, and we can still hail with pride the motto em- 
blazoned on its shield — ExCEI.BIOB." 

Here is the very heresy of separate State sovereignty to 
which we owe the Southern rebellion ; and while Mr. Seymour 



13 

finds a gleam of hope in following the flag of the State, his 
supporter, Mr. Fernando Wood, rejoiced in the prospeel of an 
independent city. My fellow citizens, yon know, if Mr. Sey- 
mour and Mr. Wood do not, that New York is, in the won!.-, 

of Webster, " the noblest monument of the Union,'' that it 
owes its greatness and glory to the Union, and that separated 
from the Union it might fitly exchange its motto of Ekcelsior 
for that of Miserere. 

In his later speeches, Mr. Seymour has expressed himself 
in favor of prosecuting the war for the present, and he even 
quotes approvingly, with a seemingly significant amendment, 
the motto under which President Lincoln is prosecuting his 
revolutionary system of coercion — "the Union, the Constitu- 
tion, and the laws," for Mr. Seymour omits the gist of the 
question when he omits " the enforcement of the laws." 

That ho still doubts our constitutional right, and discards 
our constitutional duty and policy to enforce the laws; that he 
still anticipates the downfall of our nation, and is ready to 
hasten it by a voluntary act of national suicide, is evident from 
his listening composedly to his supporter, Mr. John Van Buren, 
when that democratic orator recommended that we should say 
to the rebel States the moment we occupied Richmond, " Way- 
ward sisters, depart in peace ! " To that public enunciation of 
the policy which a class at the North advocating his claims 
as Governor would now force upon the country, Mr. Seymour, 
without a syllable of dissent, gave emphatic sanction by his 
silence. 

Let us turn to Mr. Wadsworth, a gentleman of unquestioned 
worth and ability, and of unsurpassed generosity and frank- 
ness, who, though he had not possessed, like Mr. Seymour, the 
advantage of a military education, the instant war was waged 
upon the Union, volunteered his services, bore himself gallantly 
in the thickest of the fight at the first battle of Bull Run, where 
his horse was shot under him, and who, from that hour to this, 
has devoted himself to his military duties; not leaving his po6t 
for a day to take part in this canvass for which the indifference 
of his opponents to our national struggle affords them such 
abundant leisure. 



14 

Now listen to a few words from this man who believes in 
the Union, and fights for the Union, who upholds the flag of 
his country, and the honor of his country, and finds no gleam 
of hope in the downfall of the nation, in following the banner 
of a city or of a State. I quote from a speech made by Mr. 
Wadsworth at "Washington, shortly after his nomination, to his 
friends who assembled to present their congratulations. He 
said : 

" "While I Ciinnot claim that my nomination is the result of any public 
services or the reward of any exertions on my part for the public welfare, 
I do claim for it a significance and a meaning too plainly marked for the 
slightest doubt to rest upon. My name has been thus prominently intro- 
duced by those who are earnest and who believe me to be earnest also — 
by men who believe that this rebellion, gigantic as are its proportions, can 
be crushed — that it ought to be crushed, and who intend that it shall be 
crushed. They intend to uphold this Government of ours — they intend to 
hold together our Country at whatever cost of blood and suffering — to de- 
vastate it if need be — but to hold it together, however it may be, as only 
one Country or land of refuge, as it has been in the happy days of the past, 
for the oppressed of all parts of the world. These earnest men are assured 
that I think as they think on this great question. They do not wish, they do 
not intend to survive the dismemberment of their beloved country. They 
do not believe that I, or anything that is mine, shall survive it. 

* * u -^y wan t peace, gentlemen, but wo want a country more ; we 
want an honorable, a permanent, a solid peace ; when Ave have achieved 
that, we shall commence again a career of prosperity — prosperity the like 
of which we have never before known, and the world has never wit- 
nessed. AVe shall spring, as it were, by one bound to be the mightiest, freest, 
and happiest people on the face of the earth." 

Which of the two candidates, my fellow citizens, utters the 
sentiments of true hearted, loyal Americans? The election of 
which man will most aid the National Government to perpetu- 
ate the unity and glory of onr country? 

Gentlemen, if any doubt could possibly exist as to the in- 
fluence of this election on our national struggle, it might readi- 
ly be solved by reference to the opinions of our domestic and 
foreign foes, who are now bent on the present humiliation and 
permanent destruction of the American Republic. 

Let us glance for an instant at the organs of the rebels at 
Richmond, and those of the rebel sympathizers in London. 



15 

In Richmond, the newspapers reproduce with delight the sen- 
timents of Mr. John Van Buren and other secession sympa- 
thizers at the North. The Richmond Examiner of the 18th 
October, after intimating that no "period lias yet occurred 
more burdened with suspense than the present," and referring 
to "the next election in New York and other Northern States, 
now close at hand," significantly remarks: "AVc shall soon 
know whether these words have still an echo, and we may well 
listen anxiously, for on the answer depi rids the duration of th 
war." The Richmond Dispatch of the same day expresses its 
opinion based upon Northern avowals that "the North would 
be willing to be whipped and unite again upon such a consti- 
tution as the South would prescribe," and after this sneer at 
the people of the loyal States it rejects with scorn the imagi- 
nary submission of Northern serviles, and declares, " Hence- 
forth, we are two people * * we must live apart." 

In England, Lord Palmerston, so recently as August last, 
listened without dissent to Mr. Roebuck, M. P., while he 
declared, in language akin to that of Mr. Seymour, that the 
attempt of the North to restore the Union by force was " an 
immoral proceeding, totally incapable of success ; " and inti- 
mated that the Northerners never could be their friends, 
because they were " the scum and refuse of Europe." 

On the 7th of October, Mr. Gladstone, at. Newcastle, de- 
clared, " Jefferson Davis and the other leaders of the South 
have made an army — they are making, it appears, a navy — 
and they have made a nation " — an announcement that was 
received with prolonged and enthusiastic cheering. And the 
honorable gentleman further proclaimed that they "might anti- 
cipate with certainty the success of the Southern States, so 
far as regards effecting their separation from the North," and 
this announcement was also received with cheers. Mr. Glad- 
stone then thought proper to indulge in expressions of sympa- 
thy for the Northern people, which we are hardly yet prepared 
very warmly to appreciate, under the inevitable humiliation 
that is sure to await them ; and he reminded hishearersof the re- 
ception at the North of the Prince of Wales, saving — " Letevery 
Englishman engrave upon the tablet of his heart the recollec- 



16 

tion of that memorable day." From the report of his speech, 
it would seem that Mr. Gladstone did not think it worth while 
to remind the English people that the only spot in America 
where their gentle prince and future king was hooted at and 
insulted was in the city of Richmond, while he was gazing on the 
statue of Washington ; or, that the Secretary of War of the 
United States, when Sir John Crampton and the English con- 
suls were dismissed the country under the Presidency of 
Franklin Pierce, a Southern sympathizer, was Jefferson Davis. 
But this, perhaps, is aside from the argument. I only wish 
you to recognize and appreciate the fact that the London 
Ti?nes, the London Post, and the London Herald — the organs 
of that British aristocracy which for eighty years has been 
the persistent and malignant foe of the American Republic, are 
now the eulogists of Ben. Wood and the sham democracy he 
represents, the advocates of Jefferson Davis, and the ear- 
nest promoters of that separation between the North and the 
South which will leave both divisions of the republic a help- 
less prey to European aggression, and which is shadowed 
forth by the peace programme of Horatio Seymour, and the 
"depart in peace " policy of his chief supporter, John Van 
Buren. 

English statesmen, with signs of vigor before them in Amer- 
ica such as England never exhibited, persist in regarding us 
as in the agonies of dissolution, and forgetful of their holy 
horror at the question asked by Nicholas of their minister, as 
to what should be the disposition of the effects of the sick 
man of Turkey, the}' are already discussing what parts of the 
American Republic they may find it convenient to appropri- 
ate. By the last arrival, we learn that it has been announced 
to a delighted audience of Englishmen, that they would pres- 
ently possess themselves of the State of Maine and the har- 
bor of Portland. 

If you would raise a shout of triumph in the rebel Cabinet at 
Richmond, and an exultant smile in the British Cabinet at St. 
James — if yon would strike a deeper blow at the American Union 
than any that the Southern armies have ever struck — if you 
would make our brave soldiers now on the advance feel that they 



17 

have n foe in the rear more deadly than any in their front — 
if you arc ready to contemplate complacently and with a 
gleam of hope the downfall of the nation, rally your strength 
and make Mr. Seymour the Governor of Xew York. Speak- 
ing of our soldiers, of whom I believe 200,000 have gone 
from this State alone — I know not how many thousand have 
given their lives for their country and sleep in a soldiers 
grave — let me remind you of our duty to those who are yet 
in the field awaiting the shock of battle, ready to restore the 
Union or to die. In the words of Mr. Bancroft, the eminent 
historian: "For one, I will not give a vote for any man 
whose election would be an encouragement to the rebels to 
hold out — I for one will not consent to send our sons and 
brothers to the battle field, and then betray them at the 
polls." 

Let me read to you the last words of one of our dead 
heroes, written from the battle field as his life was ebbing. 
Listen to it, if you can, without emotion at the holy patriotism 
that lighted up his pathway to heaven, and that appeals to ns, 
as a voice from the dead, to stand by the old flag he so 
bravely defended. The letter was written by the late Colonel 
Brodhead, of Detroit : 

"My Dearest Wife: I write to you, mortally wounded, from the 
battle field. We are again defeated, and ere this reaches you your children 
will be fatherless. ********* 

"I wrote to you yesterday morning. To-day is Sunday, and to-day 1 
sink to the green couch of our final rest. 

"I have fought well, my darling, and I was shot in the endeavor 
to rally our broken battalions. I could have escaped, but I would not till 
all hope was gone, and was shot — about the only one of our forces left on 
the field. Our cause is just. In God's good time He will give us victory. 

"And now, good-bye, wife and children. Bring them up, I know you 
will, in the fear of God and love for the Saviour. But for you and the 
dear ones dependent 1 should die happy. 1 know the blow will fall with 
crushing weight on you. Trust in Him who gave manna in the wilderness. 

"Dr. Nash is with me. It is now after midnight, and I have spent 
most of the night in sending messages to you. 

"Two bullets have gone through my chest, and directly through the 
lungs. I sutler but little now, but at first the pain was acute. I have won 
the soldier's name, and am ready to meet, now, as 1 must, the soldier's 
2 



18 

fate. I hope that from Heaven I may see the glorious old flag wave again 
over the undivided Union I have loved so well. 

"Farewell, wife, and babes, and friends. We shall meet again. 

" Your loving Thokntox.'' 

There are some other points raised by Mr. Seymour to 
which I may not improperly allude. In a speech he delivered 
in October, 1SG1, in the midst of the war. he is reported 
to have said: "If it be true that slavery must be abolished 
to save this Union, then the people of the South should be 
allowed to withdraw themselves from a Government which 
cannot give them the protection guaranteed by its terms." 

Now consider, I pray you, the full meaning of this declar- 
ation ; and that you may understand its full import, let me 
recall the fact, that in the convention of South Carolina, first 
and foremost of the rebel States to repudiate allegiance to the 
Constitution, her most prominent statesmen, Rhett and Par- 
ker, and Keitt and Inglis, distinctly declared that secession 
was not produced by Mr. Lincoln, nor by the non-execution 
of the Fugitive Slave law, but that it had been contemplated 
for a long series of years. Hemember, too, that Mr. Stephens 
of Georgia, the vice-president of the Confederacy, solemnly 
assured the people of his State that their rights had been and 
could be secured in the Union ; and that Mr. Hill, of Georgia, 
declared within the last month, in the rebel Congress, that 
u the people of the South never dissolved the Union on 
account of complaints against the Federal Government." 
(Quoted in the Baltimore American, Oct. 14, 1862.) 

Remember, too, that the people of the South were fairly 
warned by their own statesmen in advance, that secession 
would involve the destruction of slavery. Mr. Boyce, of South 
Carolina, expressly told them : " If secession shall take place, 
of which I have no idea, for I cannot believe in such stupen- 
dous madness, I shall consider the institution of slavery as 
doomed, and that the great God, in our blindness, has made us 
the instrument of its destruction." 

The Italeigh Standard pictured the fearful evils that must 
result from secession, with repudiation, bankruptcy, beggary 
— the predominance of the sword over law — and wound 



19 

up the catalogue -with the warning: " tlie end" will be aboli- 
tion." 

And yet, when the South, thus forewarned, has rushed into 
this rebellion, which Mr. Seymour admits (page 10) is "most 
wicked," " against the best government that ever existed," 
and slavery is found to constitute the strength of the rebel- 
lion, " the strong arm," as an Alabama paper expresses it, by 
which they intend to destroy the Union, Mr. Seymour denies 
the right of the Government to protect itself by destroying 
slavery, and insists that, if it be found that slavery must be 
abolished to save the Union, it shall not be done, but that the 
Union must be sacrificed to save slavery ; and hence it is that 
so fierce an outcry has been got np against the Proclamation 
of the President, giving notice to the rebels that, unless they 
return to their allegiance by the 1st of January, the slave- 
will be set at freedom, that they may render their allegiance 
where it is justly due, to the Government of the United 
States ; and not, as at present, to the armed enemies of the 
Constitution. 

The slaveholders themselves, as Mr. Boyce told them, 
have become, in their madness, the destroyers of the wretched 
system on which they proposed to base a new Empire of in- 
expressible baseness, and no efforts now on the part of their 
Northern sympathizers can avert its inevitable doom. 

The Presidential Proclamation still leaves it optional with 
themselves to return to their allegiance before the 1st of 
January; but this offer they treat with scorn, and they incur, 
of their own free will, the inexorable consequences of war. 

There is one other point made by Mr. Seymour, which as 
an American I blush to name. He has suggested the idea of 
repudiation by the American people of the National debt now 
being incurred to defend the rights and honor of the country. 
as though he had adopted not only his political principles but 
his views of honor from the great. Repudiator of Mississippi. 

The bare suggestion that our countrymen will hesitate or 
grumble at discharging such a debt, is an insult and an out 
rage to every true American, and is calculated, if it was not 
intended, to lower our character and impair our credit in for- 



20 

eign lands, and to give color to the scurrilous imputation on 
our integrity so insolently indulged in by our foreign foe's. 

I will not detain you, gentlemen, with any elaborate defence 
of Mr. Lincoln's administration against the charges lonsc since 
made against him at Richmond and. now reechoed in Kew 
York, of wantonly trampling on the constitutional liberties of 
the country. 

By cunningly confounding the rights and duties of the 
President under the Constitution in times of peace, with his 
rights and duties as Commander-in-Chief of the army in time 
of war, and in a struggle for national existence, it has been easy 
to persuade those who were ready to be deceived, that he has 
usurped powers that did not belong to him. Thomas Jefferson, 
who was once held to be good authority by professed Demo- 
crats, declared that: "A strict observance of the written law 
is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen ; but it 
is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preserva- 
tion, of saving our country when our country is in danger, 
are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous 
adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with 
life, liberty, property, and all those who enjoy them with us — 
thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means." And, after 
quoting various instances where General Washington post- 
poned, the rights of citizens for the safety of the nation, he 
said : " In all these cases the unwritten law of necessity — of 
self-preservation, and of the public safety — control the written 
law of meum and tuum." 

If any act of the President in this crisis seems to demand 
an explanation, be content to find it in the ancient principle, 
that the safety of the people is the highest law ; and thank 
God that wo have a President whoso honest and unselfish 
patriotism is not only untainted, but unsuspected. 

If the President has committed errors, in the extraordina- 
rily difficult position in which ho was placed by the unex- 
ampled treachery of his democratic prodecessor ; if Mr. Lin- 
coln's original policy, too long persisted in, of attempting to 
blend conciliation toward the rebels and protection of their 
property, with the stern usages of war, has proved a melan- 



21 

choly and almost fatal error; the Northern democracy, who 

urgently recommended that policy, are not the men who 
should complain of its results. From the commencement of 
the war, the President has, with a generosity thai is now ill 
requited, consulted the democratic sentiment of the North, in 
reference to the conduct of the campaigns, and the choice of 
his generals ; and their comments now on the consequences 
that have resulted from their ill-omened advice, the motives 
of which are being gradually unfolded, are alike ungenerous 
and unjust. 

But were it true that, on the part of the present Adminis- 
tration, there had been an inexcusable slowness in crushing 
this rebellion, or inexcusable corruption on the part of con- 
tractors (and here remember that the proofs of corruption 
complained of, have been carefully sought out by the present 
Government, that they might correct the evil), is it not the 
very height of insolence in these democratic leaders to offer 
themselves as the proper parties to whom the people should 
now intrust the destinies of the country '. Whose was the 
Administration in power, when this cursed rebellion first 
raised its head, even before the election of Mr. Lincoln \ 
"Whose was the President, that might have nipped it in the 
bud, by giving Gen. Scott the authority which, week after 
week, he beseechingly demanded? Who, thus forewarned, 
deliberately betrayed the defences of the country? Who 
quietly suffered its fortresses to be occupied, its arsenals and 
navy yards to be seized, its arms and munitions to be stolen '. 
Who depleted its Treasury, and robbed it of the Indian 
bonds? W 7 ho put out of reach the army, and scattered and 
crippled the navy ? Who, under the shadow of our Hag, and 
swearing to support the Constitution, were guilty of that 
damnable treason which has no parallel in history \ Who, 
but the trusted friends of Mr. Seymour and his supporters, 
the Democrat Buchanan, and his associate traitors, Floyd and 
Toucey, Thompson and Cobb ? Where, too, now, is Breckin- 
ridge, the democratic candidate of the Seymours, and Van 
Burens, and Ben Woods \ Where, but in the ranks of the 
rebel army, endeavoring to destroy the country which he 



22 

could not govern, and to punish the American people for de- 
feating him at the polls ? 

Gentlemen, whatever mistakes may have been made by 
Mr. Lincoln, the great fact remains, that never did a na- 
tion so suddenly raise itself from a depth where treason 
and treachery had sunk it, to such a position of grandeur and 
strength ; never was so mighty an army, and so wondrous a 
navy, called into existence in so short a time. Already have 
we shown, that a Government that rests on the affections 
of the people can accomplish with ease what no European 
power would even dream of attempting. Already have we 
vindicated, in great measure, the wisdom of our fathers, the 
loyalty of their sons, and the strength of our institutions. 
One more united effort — a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull 
altogether — and the rebellion will be crushed so thoroughly, 
that rebellion in the American republic will be impossible for 
centuries to come. 

More than an hundred thousand loyal citizens of our State, 
who, if at home, would vote to maintain the National Govern- 
ment in the prosecution of this war, are now in the field at- 
testing their devotion to our country with their lives. If a 
governor is elected who sympathizes with the rebels, who 
prefers maintaining their interests to maintaining the Union, 
and who would say to them, " Depart in peace ! " it will be 
only because New York has sent to the battle field that army 
of noble volunteers. Let us be as faithful to them as they are 
faithful to us ; let them not have the agony of feeling that they 
are being betrayed in their own homes by those who sympa- 
thize with the foe they are so bravely meeting. 

And, gentlemen, in this hour of danger to our common 
country, let not Westchester — our own Westchester, where 
American freedom was sometime cradled — be behind the 
most loyal districts of the State. Let none of revolutionary 
name give reason to suppose that they are descended from " the 
Cowboys." Let our naturalized citizens stand firmly by their 
gallant leaders. Let the Irish stand by the flag of the Govern- 
ment, which Corcoran and Meagher and Bustecd are uphold- 



23 

ing; and let the Germans remember at the pulls Sigel and 
Rosecrans and Heintzelman and Max Weber. 

Not only in the vote for a Governor of the State, bnt in 
that of a member for Congress and of the Assembly, regard 
carefully the influence each of you will be exerting on the 
war. 

Mr. Haight is entitled to your heartiest support, not sim- 
ply as the candidate of the Union Convention, bnt as one 
already versed in the duties of his position ; as one who, dem- 
ocrat as he is, has recognized it as his first duty to sustain the 
Government, and who by his services in the last Congress 
commanded the respect and confidence of the Administration, 
and especially of that far-sighted and accomplished states- 
man, the Secretary of the Treasury, whose schemes of finance, 
which have already enabled us to disappoint the predic- 
tions of our English friends, are yet to be completed, I trust, 
with Mr. Haight's ready cooperation in connection with the 
bankers of New York, in such a way as to show to the world 
that, in the midst of a war that would exhaust an ordinary 
power, our National Securities, with a tax not one fourth as 
oppressive as that of England, are made a solid and most 
advantageous investment ; and then our currency, convertible 
at par into an interest-paying stock, should approximate 
closely to the gold standard. 

For the Assembly, gentlemen, the Union Candidate is your 
townsman, Mr. McMahon, who will now address yon. Mr. 
McMahon, like Mr. Ilaight, has been a life-long democrat, as 
I suppose a majority of you have been, but like Haight, and 
Wads worth, and Tremain, he scorns that bastard school of 
democracy which substitutes treason for patriotism, and repu- 
diation for national faith — that " organized hypocrisy" which, 
professing to support the Constitution and to adore the Union, 
denies the right of the nation " to coerce " the South, that it 
may protect its integrity and enforce its laws — that sham de- 
mocracy which, no longer the vindicator of our national rights 
and our national honor, has become the servile tool of South- 
ern oligarchs — earning the contempt and detestation of all 



24 

loyal citizens, and repaid for their treachery, like Benedict 
Arnold, by the favor and eulogies of the enemies of America. 

One last thought is suggested to us by Colonel Hamilton, 
of Texas, and the other Union men of the South, who are now 
among us, escaped from the bloody despotism of Jefferson 
Davis. These men, Southerners by birth and slaveholders by 
inheritance, deny with the sternest indignation the assertion 
of Mr. Seymour, that the Union men of the South desire at 
this time the revival of the democratic party, and they beseech 
you, in the name of their wives, their children, and their 
homes, to stand by the National Government and by every 
act of the Executive — the Proclamation and all, until the last 
vestige of the rebellion is swept away and the Stars and Stripes 
again float in majesty over the rebellious States. To such an 
appeal none but traitors and sympathizers with traitors can 
be indifferent. 

My fellow countrymen, let us never despair of our Repub- 
lic ; but, remembering all that it originally cost, all that we are 
now giving in exertion, in money, and most of all in the life 
blood of our sons and brothers to maintain it, let us vote only 
for those who will swear never to desert the old flag, never to 
consent to the sundering of our Republic, never to betray our 
National Independence, never to dishonor our hereditary prin- 
ciples of Freedom ; for thus only can we pay that debt of love 
and gratitude and devotion which we all owe to our Common 
Countrv. 



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